In December 1984, one of the world’s worst industrial disasters hit the city of Bhopal in central India killing thousands and injuring hundreds of thousands. The aftermath of the disaster raised important questions about the value of life in a developing country and the conduct of multinational corporations. Why are we talking about this now […]

The supreme court has dismissed the petition of the Indian government seeking additional compensation for the victims of the 1984 Bhopal disaster from US chemical giant Dow. Official records show that the disaster resulted in the death of 5295 people and injured another 568,292, although the total number of victims had swelled to 573,485 by […]

Researchers in Switzerland have developed a method to synthesise isoquinolines from indenes using skeletal editing.1 The one-step protocol enables easy access to an important building block in organic chemistry using simple, benign and commercially available reagents. Isoquinolines are aromatic nitrogen-containing heterocyclic structures that have applications in medical chemistry, materials science and as ligands in catalysis. […]

New discoveries in ‘dynamic bonds’ could reshape our fundamental understanding of key chemical concepts, including aromaticity and chirality. A team at the University of York in the UK has synthesised a polycyclic molecule whose aromaticity can be switched on and off, as well as a carbon cage where chiral carbon atoms interconvert without breaking bonds […]

A new way to harvest water from the air has been observed on subliming organic crystals. Similar techniques are used by some desert plants and animals. The Namib Desert beetle, for example, condenses fog via an array of hydrophilic bumps across the waxy superhydrophobic surface on its back that then funnels it into its mouth. […]

A bioluminescent nucleic acid sensor (Lunas) test has been developed that matches the speed and accessibility of a Covid-19 lateral flow test with the sensitivity of a PCR test. Fast accessible disease diagnosis saves lives, as vividly illustrated during the Covid-19 pandemic. However even as tests for the disease became more accessible users were faced […]

Researchers in the US have developed a catalytic system for reducing carboxylic acids to aldehydes and alcohols in water.1 Critically, their system avoids the use of air and moisture intolerant reagents, precious metals and specialised ligands. Many undergraduate courses in organic chemistry teach that carbonyl compounds can be reduced by hydride reagents such as lithium […]

Scientists in Switzerland and the US have developed an ecosystem of tools to boost machine learning (ML)-based design of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs). Kevin Jablonka from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) and colleagues made Mofdscribe available to users in December 2022, some of whom have already published studies exploiting it. ‘This tool helps […]

There has been much hot air expended in recent days over the supposed artificially intelligent program Chat-GPT, which is, in reality, a more sophisticated Internet search engine. James Maynard on his website The Cosmic Companion proudly announced that he had used it “to construct a pictorial journey exploring the story of Hypatia!” Having spent some […]

Tens of thousands of scientists, engineers and other technical specialists staged a UK-wide walkout on Wednesday as part of an ongoing dispute over pay, redundancy and working conditions. The Prospect trade union, which represents public and private sector workers in science, technology and service positions, declared the day-long strike following an unprecedented 80% vote in […]